Playing cards are ordinarily provided to players in casino table card games either directly from a deck held in a dealer's hands or with cards removed by the dealer from a dealing shoe. The original dealing devices were little more than trays that supported the deck(s) of cards and allowed the dealer to remove the front card (with its back facing the table to hide the rank of the card) and deliver it to a player. Over the years, both stylistic and functional changes have been made to dealing shoes, which have been used for blackjack, poker, baccarat and other casino table card games.
Recently, card recognition technology has been incorporated into card shoes in order to recognize cards as they are dealt for various purposes, including for game play and for security reasons. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/417,894 (“the '894 application”), assigned to Shuffle Master, Inc. and published as US 2006/0279040 A1, discloses such technology and a card shoe including such technology, which is incorporated herein by reference.
In the card shoe disclosed in the '894 application, the use of a physical device or component on an interior surface of the card exit port of a shoe has been used to limit the number of cards that can be pulled from the shoe at one time. A declining card support surface and two opposing side walls are used for retaining a group of pre-shuffled cards. The card-dealing shoe has an exit end with an opening for the manual removal of individual cards. Located proximate the exit end of the shoe can be a card recognition sensor and an associated card position sensor. A card feed limiter is provided to assure that only a single card exits the shoe at one time, and that the printed material on the card comes into close proximity to, or contact with, the sensors, facilitating the scanning of the card markings.
A fixed card feed limiter, such as that disclosed in the '894 application, could be improved. Its configuration can require an exertion of greater force by a dealer to extract a playing card from the shoe, depending on the thickness of the cards stored therein. Related to this, the fixed card feeder limiter may not be compatible with some playing cards, again, depending on card thickness and size. Furthermore, residue from the playing cards, which may accumulate after even limited use of the cards, can build up on the sensors for the card-reading system. This residue buildup can cause the system to malfunction, e.g., card misreading, and require service. A card-dealing shoe that can accommodate varied card thickness and allow easy access to the card-reading sensors for cleaning or repair would be advantageous.
It would also be advantageous to provide a card shoe that permits more freedom of movement of cards as they are removed from the shoe, in a horizontal plane or parallel to the horizontal plane defining the playing surface as cards are being removed from the shoe, or in another plane that is angled with respect to the horizontal plane. This greater freedom of movement advantageously prevents the dealers from experiencing fatigue and repetitive stress injuries resulting from dealing cards repeatedly from a shoe.